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> The first vote for a candidate costs one credit. But casting two votes for a single candidate costs four credits (ie, two squared); casting three costs nine (
by tablespoon 5y ago
> The first vote for a candidate costs one credit. But casting two votes for a single candidate costs four credits (ie, two squared); casting three costs nine (three squared), and so on.
This is not as bad as I imagined from the title. A lot of alternative voting systems that people like (e.g. ranked choice) are too complicated, and I think it's important for legitimacy that a voting process be so simple that even stupid or uninterested people can understand the mechanism completely. In this proposal, a winner is still determined by simple counting, and the more complicated part is entirely exposed to individual voters.
Though with anything that makes voting for alternatives easier, I think something would have to be done to limit the explosion of candidates to a reasonably small number that a voter can realistically consider, like 5 or 10.
- oneoff786 5y agoRanked choice voting seems far easier to me. In quadratic the total number of votes you have depends on the distribution. Very hard for innumerate people to understand. Ranked choice is just ranking your preferences. You don’t need to understand the underlying math
- tablespoon 5y ago> In quadratic the total number of votes you have depends on the distribution. Very hard for innumerate people to understand. But it's something they'll encounter and have to understand to fill out the vote paper (which I imagine would look something like a simple math worksheet). > Ranked choice is just ranking your preferences. You don’t need to understand the underlying math Not to vote, but the problem I have it is in the end, "the algorithm" spits out who wins, and that's going to be totally opaque to most people. On the other hand, pretty much anyone can easily figure out "which number is biggest."
- oneoff786 5y agoYou can easily fill out a quadratic worksheet incorrectly though. Ranked choice is just whoever gets the most points win. I don’t think that’s too difficult to follow personally.
- ethanbond 5y agoRanked choice is only confusing if you just handwave and show the final result. Put the thing on TV showing each and every round, with boxes moving up the list and off the list, and it’ll be completely obvious how it works. It’s befuddling that you think it’s actually better to put the complexity on the ballot for each individual voter to wrangle with in the complete privacy of a voting booth.
- ttfkam 5y agoApproval voting always struck me as the best way forward, though I am certainly no elections expert. Doesn't require ballot changes. Doesn't require anyone change their voting style or keep track of which is 1, 2, etc. Obvious simplicity where you vote for whoever would be acceptable to you. Whoever is the most acceptable to the greatest number of people gets elected. Really good at weeding out extremists and favoring folks that can appeal to the biggest tent.
- cma 5y agoRanked choice is not that simple, and the math doesn't mean what the words say because you don't have to rank your choices honestly. Say you have one guy you want most, A, a second much less, B, and a third abhorrent, C. You can rank the abhorrent guy above B in order to lower B's rank even more, with the assumption that most people aren't going to rank C high. People in A and B camps can both try this strategy and C, who only a small minority actually wants as first choice ends up winning.
- antifa 5y agoI don't think this criticism makes sense, you're literally already intended to rank your least desired candidates lowest.
- cma 5y agoWhat you are intended to do is not the same as what people do. Strategic voting happens, arrow's impossibility theorem says there is no one way that solves all the problems.
- maxwell 5y agoWhat's too complicated about ranked choice voting as implemented in Maine? https://www.rstreet.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/09/Final-Short-106.pdf https://www.rstreet.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/09/Final-Sho...
- fourseventy 5y agoThank you!! My thoughts exactly but I've never been able to express it so well.
- albrewer 5y ago> A lot of alternative voting systems that people like (e.g. ranked choice) are too complicated With the quadratic method, though, all the complexity of the voting system is on the ballot rather than in the tallying process. It's pretty common to see normal people on Facebook claim that 3^2 is 6 rather than 9. I got really into the mathematics behind voting awhile back and discovered that it's been a topic of some rigorous study for over a thousand years. There exist mathematically "perfect" voting systems that are somewhat hard for the average person to understand [0]. As it turns out, the system that makes the "best" tradeoffs between ease of implementation, ease of auditing, political buy-in, and overall fairness is ranked choice voting. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Condorcet_method https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Condorcet_method
- davidivadavid 5y agoIsn't the main result of voting theory that there precisely isn't any perfect voting system (satisfying basic common sense constraints)?
- Jansen312 5y agoA more concern voting is at running the elections fairly. All these math are useless if the voters base are "less informed" and elections process susceptible to fraud. 2020 elections demonstrate it is not math the issue but the implementation. You can see in Myanmar for instance who got the votes and who got the power. Same thing with USA having the guy way more popular than Obama and SCOTUS scared to hear election fraud cases. Some EU side going with fractional representation always clogged up inefficiently. Look at Brits for example. We know the referendum for the Brexit isn't done with best representation of the people votes. But it gives a way to go forward and do something about it rather than like some countries that had the run off and keep revoting multiple times until a clear majority emerged.
- BrandoElFollito 5y agoStupid or uninterested people should not be allowed to vote. I always wanted a system where you have to answer 5 questions before being given your voting card. Something like what is the current president, is Germany a neighbor country, etc. If you do not know these thighs you cannot make an informed choice. I even wanted to make it harder. You first say who you want to vote for. Then you are asked a question about their position on things important for the country. If you are completely off you do not get your voting card because it means you do not know what your candidate wants to do in basic areas of life. If you get it right you hear a voting card and you can vote for whoever you want.
- BrandoElFollito 5y agoIn th elast sentence hear → get (autocorrect...). Sorry cannot edit anymore.